Fortællinger om kreativitet i DR: Et empirisk studie af kreativitet i et narrativt perspektiv

Abstract

Conceptions of creativity have changed over the course of history. Creativity has become an important phenomenon in contemporary economy and has been emphasized as a key factor for growth and success of organizations. Scientific research in creativity has increased and despite a solid study in the field during the last half-century, creativity is still both vaguely and broadly defined. This study takes a constructivist approach to creativity in the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) and seeks to examine, how creativity is constructed in narratives within three departments across the DR organization. The thesis is based on an empirical, qualitative study of creativity and draws on a narrative perspective by Jerome Bruner and Michael White. This study aims to explore how the understanding and construction of meaning of creativity in DR affects the possibilities for social actions for the members of the organization. Instead of asking what creativity is and how it can be enhanced for the benefit of DR, we are interested in creativity as a result of meaning making processes and in the consequences of dominant narratives in DR. The analysis identifies two dominant narratives of creativity in DR. The overall proposition of the analysis is that these two dominant stories can limit the social actions by creating passive positions for some employees, by legitimizing that the structure and conceptual frameworks are infringed, and by reducing the opportunity for management of so-called creative employees. Furthermore, the analysis investigates how the narratives in DR present an essentialist view of creativity. The analysis deconstructs one dominant narrative to illustrate how this can lead to increased possibilities for actions for the members of the organization. Based on the analysis, the thesis discusses how creativity is locally constituted through stories and more likely to be discursive contingent in DR. This study concludes that the meaning making processes of creativity is determining for social actions in DR. Hence, narratives about creativity have an impact on possible actions for the members of the organization. The findings illustrate that creativity in DR is embedded in social practice. Thus, our thesis challenges the ontological status of creativity, which is represented in the majority of literature in the field.